In systems where many computers and associated devices are connected on a network, keeping track of these devices may be a time consuming and difficult task.
There are a variety of conventional solutions to help people manage the resources on a network in an efficient manner. For example, managing printers comprises such activities as monitoring the state of a printer, identifying the need for maintenance actions for a printer, or accounting for printer usage. Other management functions are well known.
Printers are often difficult to manage because a large number of printers may be from different manufacturers and have widely different characteristics. If a new printer is added to the network, the management process needs to know about the printer's characteristics in order to manage the new printer along with any other printers on the network.
Conventionally, printers, which are designed to be connected to a network, contain a set of parameters that describe the capabilities and state of the printer.
One conventional example is the management information base defined by Internet RFC3805. These parameters may be read remotely, and in some cases, may also be changed remotely in order to change printer performance or capability.
If a printer follows the RFC3805 protocol, the printer's management information base may be interrogated by a remote computer. This allows the remote computer to see the state of the printer via the parameters of the management information base and to understand the capabilities of the printer that are defined in the management information base.
However, while RFC3805 defines a set of parameters for the management information base, reading the management information base reveals the values of the parameters but does not identify each parameter.
Other ways of storing information about a printer or the printer's state are also known to those skilled in the art. These may include, for example, private or proprietary areas of the SNMP base.
Furthermore, conventional networked printers may contain a web page or set of pages where the web pages may include information about the state of the printer and may include ways to alter one or more parameters of the printer via fields on a web page.
While there is no standard format for embedded web pages, nevertheless the HTML code that generates the web page may be parsed to identify portions of the web page that relate to printer properties or the printer's state.
If each printer on the network is to be managed, it is useful to build a profile for each printer on the network. Such a profile would contain information about the capabilities of the printer as well as a means to determine the state of the printer. The state of the printer may include such things as the levels of toner, the number of pages printed, whether the printer is idle or busy, etc.
It would be desirable to be able to build a profile for a new printer automatically in order to minimize the amount of time that a person would need to build the profile manually. It would be further desirable to be able to detect the existence of a new printer on a network and to be able to perform the automatic profile generation without manual intervention.